Abstract: Food safety is a critical issue concerning both public well-being and economic development. In recent years, while China's dairy industry has continued to expand in scale, incidents related to product quality and compliance risks have still occurred from time to time, highlighting the urgency of strengthening legal and compliance construction in enterprise production processes. This paper takes the 2022 Milkground Group incident involving the illegal addition of propylene glycol to pure milk as a starting point. By reviewing the course of the incident and its administrative penalties, it analyzes the sources of compliance risks faced by dairy enterprises in their production processes. These mainly include: the excessive or unauthorized use of food additives, inadequate implementation of production standards, deficiencies in internal management systems, weak compliance awareness among employees, as well as external regulatory pressures and social supervision. Building on this analysis, the paper proposes systematic response strategies from a legal control perspective: enterprises should establish and improve internal legal compliance systems and risk early-warning mechanisms; refine food safety management systems and strengthen employee compliance training; and proactively align with legal regulations and supervisory requirements while establishing smooth consumer supervision channels. The study argued that only by embedding compliance management into the entire production and operation process, and achieving synergistic interaction between internal controls and external supervision, can dairy enterprises effectively avoid legal risks, ensured product quality and safety, and promote the healthy and sustainable development of the industry.

Key words: dairy enterprise, production compliance risk, legal control, Milkground incident, food safety, food additives